The Walery Rzewuski Museum of History of Photography in Cracow

The Walery Rzewuski Museum of the History of Photography is the only institution in Poland in this line and was founded in December 1986. Its present site, a villa at 19 Józefitow Street, is registered as a monument. The museum gathers, processes, stores, preserves and provides goods of culture from the field of photographic history and technique as well as from artistic photography. It conducts scientific, educational, expositional and editorial activity.

The collection, apart from stereoscopic photography, autochromes, daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, albumen photos, glass plates and celluloid film, also covers a rich set of cameras and photo atelier equipment. The museum presents an exhibition of extremely rare and hardly known photos. These are the autochromes of Krakow photographer Tadeusz Rzaca, taken mostly between 1910 and 1920. They are photos of Krakow, Kalwaria Zebrzydowska, the Tatra Mountains and many other places in Lesser Poland. Tadeusz Rzaca’s high artistic sensitivity and the beautiful colours of the autochromes will undoubtedly help in discovering not only the works of an undeservedly forgotten artist but also the first coloured photography technique.

Out of the nearly 500 cameras that are part of the museum collection, one is particularly interesting: displayed as part of the permanent exhibition is the large format travel camera. It was used to take photos on glass plates the size of 30 x 40 cm. The camera was made in Germany in the 1890s and is equipped with a high class Euryscop No. 6 lens produced by Voigtländer & Sohn from Braunschweig.